


Starlight

by aijee



Category: iKON (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space Adventure, M/M, Triple Kim - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-18 18:04:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11295930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aijee/pseuds/aijee
Summary: “I have a job for you.”Hanbin stares at the folder Yunhyeong, Jiwon’s advisor, holds out. CLASSIFIED is flashily stamped in red across the front.“It’s about a thief-slash-bounty hunter." Jiwon has the gall to look proud of himself. "The tabloids say he’s ‘infamously sexy.’”





	Starlight

**Author's Note:**

> I present the lovechild of rewatching the Dumb and Dumber MV, reading all of _Saga_ so far in two days flat, and iKON’s latest comeback. I still can’t get over Jinhwan’s stage name.
> 
> (Ironically, this fic is Hanbin-centric.)
> 
> This work is both parts fan fiction and commentary in many ways, so please read with a grain of salt. There is nothing explicit, but the subtleties are hopefully detectable.

 

"All alone in a corner of the night sky  
Spiral bones of a supernova starlight  
Fell in love with another burning bright."

Sarah Bareilles, “Cassiopeia"

  

* * *

 

On the kingdom-planet of Terraland, the rogue prince Jiwon has returned on the pretense that he’s changed his rogue ways and everyone knows it’s bullshit.

But the king is dying and Jiwon helped revive agriculture and textiles, plus his nice smile and nicer personality are great bonuses for the dry gossip mill. Jiwon’s return also meant, unsurprisingly, bringing home a friend – someone named Hanbin, another handsome Terran with the severity and shooting precision that could put Jiwon in his place. No one’s questioned it, and no one’s complained yet.

But Jiwon has always had a penchant for seeking entertainment where there is boredom, and in the case of the very neutral and very peaceful kingdom-planet of Terraland, that meant turning Hanbin into a chore monkey.

 

  

 

 

“You don’t even pay me.”

“I pay you with the best company in the kingdom,” Jiwon responds in a loud mumble, lips struggling to behave. As if the posing and embellishments weren’t enough, talking during a self-portrait session makes it even more difficult. “I have a job for you.”

Hanbin stares at the folder Yunhyeong, Jiwon’s advisor, holds out. CLASSIFIED is flashily stamped in red across the front.

“It’s about a thief-slash-bounty hunter." Jiwon has the gall to look proud of himself. "The tabloids say he’s ‘infamously sexy.’”

“No.”

Jiwon raises a brow, to the artist’s chagrin. “No?”

“Yes.”

“So yes?”

Hanbin rolls his eyes. “I am affirming that my answer to your request is no.”

Seeing Jiwon’s clear struggle to assert himself as king while keeping still, the artist waves a dismissive brush, releasing the now-king of Terraland from an immobile state as unnatural to him as matter to black holes. Hanbin supposes that the artist has seen enough photos of Jiwon to manage the rest of the painting, though Hanbin doesn’t understand why traditional portraiture still exists when holograms are a thing.

“We don’t even have clearance for independent missions that involve regions outside our own,” argues Hanbin, and the argument is perfectly reasonable to anyone with their head on straight.

Which doesn’t seem to include the king. “C’mon,” whines Jiwon as he sets his crown and cape and loose jewels aside.

It’s strange seeing him dressed so opulently when most of their years together involved being inconspicuous. Hanbin feels proud in some ways, and sad in others.

“If it makes you feel better, then treat this less as a mission and more as a personal request.”

“I dislike personal requests more than missions.”

“I’ve roped Donghyuk into it.”

“And that should convince me?”

“Donghyuk’s reliable!”

Hanbin huffs, still unconvinced. Though he looks more contemplative than doubtful of the young detective’s abilities. “I can’t, not after–” he shuts his eyes for a moment, then opens them, “It’s not the same.”

“I know.” Luckily, Jiwon knows better than anyone just how much the past is still a part of them. “But I can tell that you’re being suffocated by this place. I don’t blame you; royalty stuff is stuffy. So I want you to take a break, stretch your wings and get back into the game, especially now that east property politics have sat their asses down thank _gods._ ”

Hanbin wrinkles his nose. “What about you?”

“Well,” Jiwon says with a rather unbecoming flourish, “I’ve got people to rule, space princesses to see. I don’t really miss the chase as much as you do.” He nudges Hanbin’s side, toothy smile plastered all over his dumb, kingly face. “Don’t deny, I can see it in your eyes. Y’also can’t refuse a direct order from the king.”

“And I’m guessing this is a direct order?”

In response, the king takes the folder from Yunhyeong’s hands and shoves it into Hanbin’s like the direct order it most definitely is.

“Don’t worry,” Yunhyeong says, both amused and fatigued by the exchange. “I can take care of this idiot while you’re away. No explosives, no harassing General Jung Chanwoo, and no Solarian star tarts.”

Hanbin smirks. “You’re getting the hang of this, new guy.”

“After the last gala dinner, you learn pretty fast.”

Screaming Solarians, grade S champagne in too many crevices, General Chanwoo getting scarred before reaching an acceptable age to be scarred. Hanbin shudders at the memory.

“Many regrets were made that night,” he mourns.

Jiwon flaps an annoyed but very decorated hand at the two of them. “Trust me, you won’t regret this at all.”

 

 

  

 

In his spacecraft, Hanbin is packing his things and some trade materials as Donghyuk carefully reads the case file.

The king was kind enough to omit giving Donghyuk written information for threatening to fire him from his job, and it was a joke of course, as most of Jiwon’s threats are. But Donghyuk is Donghyuk and Hanbin’s too far down the rabbit hole to clean up another mess from Terraland’s idiot ruler. Plus it builds character.

“These clippings read like bad fanfiction,” Donghyuk says with a scowl. “This one’s the worst: ‘Known simply as J, the infamously sexy thief-slash-bounty hunter has recently entered into the Hyperion Galaxy and its citizens’ hearts! J quickly became a media sensation for the cute notes he leaves behind at crime sites, as well as for his _sensual_ signature. Most importantly, watch out for his size! Girls can’t stop raving about it—’”

Hanbin shoves a bolt of wormsilk a little too hard into its storage compartment.

 

 

 

 

Silverboy is a sleazy town on the north asteroid of Periodica. Characterized by its great diners and bad people, it serves delicious family dishes that have reached even ears in the darkest corners of space. But any foreigner who so much as _blinks_ at the notion of taking the ancient recipes is executed on the spot. Suffice to say, it’s not the most ideal of date choices.

After stealing the Andromeda necklace and dispatching Planet Vortex’s forty-three-decade dictator in a span of only a double-count, this J person clearly isn’t someone who aims for “quiet” missions. Hanbin isn’t particularly surprised that he’s here.

What he _is_ surprised at is that he and Donghyuk arrive too late.

The intergalactic police have already stationed themselves on Silverboy, though from the scarce amount of garishly purple police suits, only recently. The diners have already been vacated, and a giant, grizzly figure in a greasy apron is arguing quite passionately with one of the cops.

With a little of Hanbin’s muscle memory and Donghyuk’s talent for sweet-talking, the duo make their way to the primary site of investigation – a diner aptly named The Tits as a testament to the food quality – before the police increase too much in number.

“This is a lot less damage than I expected,” Donghyuk says, eyeing the opened recipe vault flickering in and out of sight. He then uses a device the size of a drink coaster to scan the moon steel and anchor the vault to this reality. “Seems like the only thing remotely damaged in the diner is the interdimensional camouflage system.”

And he’s right. The place seems entirely untouched except for the vault. No fingerprints or footprints, whether visible or detectable. No charming trinket out of place or kitchen tile chipped. It’s as if the camouflage system broke itself and the recipes disappeared on their own. Knowing the kind of people who run the place and the kind of shit Hanbin has seen, it sounds plausible enough.

He stares at the wall of photos depicting diner staff with transiently-relevant space idols. “The handiwork is quite elegant.”

“You sound almost impressed.”

Hanbin doesn’t comment further.

“You should stop looking so dazed. People might feel less intimidated by you.”

“You should stop smart-mouthing me. People might not believe in your innocent act. Are you done yet?”

“Hold your loins, big guy, give me a second.”

Donghyuk, after a moment of contemplation, carefully sticks the butt of his pen inside of the recipe vault until it starts disappearing. Floating there is a rip in space, one so thin that Hanbin wouldn’t have noticed if Donghyuk hadn’t pointed it out.

“I know very little about the science of between-spaces, but I’m positive that the recipes weren’t stolen directly from the diner,” says the detective. “They were stolen from within the interdimension they were stored in. Something incompatible with the moon steel must have caused the rip.”

Hanbin crosses his arms and frowns. “Only certain Bankers and Owners can access interdimensions. Even so, Owners can only access their own, and Bankers only with permission from them. It’s impossible for others to open interdimensions without an Odyssey pearl– ah.”

“Yup. The Andromeda necklace.”

This troubling piece of jewelry is famed for containing every possible gem available in the Hyperion Galaxy for the sole purpose of exhibiting the beauty in variety. Of course, included is a pearl species that grants the power of dimensional travel. Hanbin remembers vomiting after using one once as a trainee; moving between dimensions was something he could never stomach. But usage of the pearl was soon banned and its place of origin closed indefinitely after a freak accident.

Without warning, Hanbin sticks his whole arm into the space rip.

 _“Oh my god are you stupid,”_ Donghyuk heaves with incredible speed. “If you’re not careful, your whole limb could be ripped from your body!”

“Good thing careful is my middle name.”

“We don’t have middle names!”

Interdimension feels as weird as Hanbin remembers, like the bridge between that which is something and that which is nothing. Then his fingers quickly hit something, and it feels like paper.

Hanbin, while holding back the urge to regurgitate his breakfast, smoothly pulls his arm back into reality, a motion that thankfully brings breath back into Donghyuk’s lungs. In between Hanbin’s forefinger and thumb is a piece of paper, perfectly square and colored black as charcoal with pleasantly curled writing scorched into the material.

“Huh, a laser pen,” Donghyuk says, lips curling in mad curiosity. “Mighty expensive and hard to find in a size this fine, but leaves no fingerprints and can double as a weapon. This guy’s covering his bases.”

Speeding heartbeats and flushing cheeks aside, with barely a glance at the message, Hanbin already knows what this is:

A challenge.

“But that still doesn’t explain the space rip. Paper and moon steel are perfectly compatible– _oh my god you are so stupid why._ ”

Before Donghyuk finishes, Hanbin has already shoved his arm back into the space rip. Elegance be damned, this time Hanbin is unceremoniously forceful with his blind search, slamming his palms against the interior until something hopefully falls out of place. The growing, nauseous thickness in his throat is on the brink of unbearable until a small and metallic object tumbles onto his knuckles.

When he extracts the item from the between-space, Hanbin doesn’t expect what he sees, though he is unpleasantly surprised.

Despite the impressive wear and tear, it’s a badge discernably made of white gold, used exclusively by a particular planet in Hyperion. Decorating the middle is a complex collection of obsidian triangles and rectangles that comprise the same insignia burned into Hanbin’s right hip and Jiwon’s back – the mark of Planet Yang, home to one of the most notorious Academies in the known universe.

Hanbin twirls the badge, stripped of its magnetic attachment unit, in his hand. The weight is familiar in all the wrong ways. “Here’s your answer, detective. White gold _and_ obsidian. Moon steel isn’t compatible with either of them.”

“But Yang is never secretive about who’s active and who’s not,” Donghyuk says. “Only the newest rookie group is outfield, but they left this galaxy an orbit ago.”

“Then J is a retiree turned independent,” says Hanbin, interest immensely piqued, face rosy in an old but new kind of excitement. “And we’re going to catch him.”

 

 

 

 

_Greetings lovely Terrans._

_It’s been a long tick since I’ve been tailed by your kind. I don’t quite know who you two are (though I know enough to know there are only two), but trust me when I write that following me won’t be very productive. So scurry back to your king and tell him I send my best wishes, and that he should pay special attention to his liquor collection. Nectar from the space fae is delicious this time of millennia._

_Love,  
J_

Below the message is a simply drawn eye, and below that is a tiny but gossip-shattering heart. It’s gaudy and ridiculous. It’s completely unbefitting someone of J’s dark profession, and Hanbin loves every part of it.

On the way to the nearest fuel station, Hanbin falls asleep to Donghyuk’s trash radio on blast and the most ridiculously sensual signature ever conceived burned into his retinas.

 

 

 

 

**“…anks for tuning into Rad10’s TalkTalkTalk! Loona sure spoiled us with the juicy deets on J’s latest adventure. Weird there was no note on site, but maybe the pops are hidin’ some sweets, eh? Anyway, here’s this sunweek’s faves, QU;33N5, and their latest hit ‘CozmoLuv’!**

_**‘La la la la luva luv** _  
_**Wouldn’t you la la la la luv to know**_  
_**Take my mask off, learn my name**_  
_**Touch my body, play this game**_  
_**C-C-Coz I want mo**_  
_**C-C-CozmoLuv, CozmoLuv**_  
_**Coz I want mo, want mo luv…”**_

 

 

 

 

FR: HanB@SP_d.b091515  
TO:  KING.JW@TERRA_m.m89221

I hate you. You knew I’d get invested, didn’t you? [ _attached image_ : TRF_159] Also, watch your space fae nectar.

 

FR: KING.JW@TERRA_m.m89221  
TO: HanB@SP_d.b150915

YEAH THANKS (not) for telling Yunhyeong and the entire fucking Council about the nectar thing! Now they won’t even let me near the celestial spring water the prince of Aquarius gifted me. [frown face] As for the investment, that’s all you, buddy. [qeuecumber] [water droplets]

 

FR: HanB@SP_d.b091515  
TO:  KING.JW@TERRA_m.m89221

Karma’s a bitch. You deserve what you’re getting. Anyway, this guy used his badge to mess with moon steel. You don’t DO that kind of stuff. Who does he think he is? Did you know he was going to be from Yang? [ _attached image:_ TRF_160]

 

FR: KING.JW@TERRA_m.m89221  
TO: HanB@SP_d.b091515

I had an inkling he was going to be from one of the Big Three. I also have an inkling that you need to RELAX. J seems fun! I like him already.

 

FR: HanB@SP_d.b091515  
TO:  KING.JW@TERRA_m.m89221

This is a mess. I hate you.

 

FR: KING.JW@TERRA_m.m89221  
TO: HanB@SP_d.b091515

Back at you, dear. [heart] [heart] [heart] Try not to pop a vein, will you? Pit stop hospitals are sketchy AF.

 

FR: HanB@SP_d.b091515  
TO:  KING.JW@TERRA_m.m89221

I’ll send you the bills. [wink face] [rude gesture]

  

 

 

 

The next time around, Hanbin and Donghyuk manage to squeeze out some luck and arrive _right_ when J leaves.

Unlike Silverboy, which is ratchet as hell, Moonbank (a moon that specializes in banking services, obviously) is slick and classy and every definition of pretentious. While it doesn’t dabble in using interdimensional spaces, Moonbank is and has been the galaxy’s most trusted bank with the nonnative balm trees and gilded marble columns to boot.

The one time Hanbin came here to oversee Bobby’s first and only personal withdrawal is enough to make him despise the place, regardless of the autograph he received from the illustrious G(alaxy)-Dragon.

The moment the ship lands, Hanbin groans loudly and emphatically as if to draw attention to the fact that he hates the place.

“Kill me now.”

“If you wanted that to happen, it would’ve happened already,” Donghyuk says gently before glancing at his watch. “Based on my calculations, we only have about fifteen ticks before our target leaves. Let’s go, loverboy.”

Hanbin curses in his native language, which he forgets is also Donghyuk’s. “Jiw– His Highness told you.”

“He didn’t, but you did.” And Donghyuk leaves Hanbin behind with an over-the-shoulder smirk.

No wonder Jiwon picked him. Jiwon is an asshat who hangs out too much with clever but young and impressionable Terrans and makes Hanbin deal with the irreparably-influenced hatchlings. Not that Jiwon is a totally bad guy; in fact, he’s pretty decent when he wants to be. But the king derives too much joy from putting Hanbin in his least favorite elements.

When Hanbin exits the ship, he’s nearly blinded by the switch from dark ship interior to cloudless, white starlight. Oh yeah, did he mention that Moonbank is also a blazing hell-desert? Fucking great.

“Welcome to Moonbank, Hand of Terraland’s king and his companion,” greets an anthropomorphic mixture between cat and squid at the entrance. “Apologies, but Moonbank is experiencing some technical difficulties right now. Can I get you a glass of our specialty wine while you wait?”

“No thank you,” Donghyuk replies all too gentlemanly. Hanbin grumbles as he shields himself from the sky’s death-rays with his cloak. “We just need to make a quick transaction, a direct order from the king. We’re on a really tight and _very_ royal schedule, so we promise we’ll be finished very quickly.”

“Apologies, sir, but our services are not at their maximum capacity to serve you!"

“It’s okay, we don’t care. We just need to get this done ASAP.”

The cat-squid pauses, eyes lazily conducting a once-over of both of them at a slowness so excruciating that Hanbin’s sure he has skin cancer by the time the uncomfortable inspection is over.

“Apologies, sir, but our services are not at their maximum capacity to serve you! I detect increased levels of body heat which may indicate increased levels of hostility—”

“We’re in a fucking desert, of course it’s hot!” Hanbin groans into is hand, “For god’s sake—” then promptly punches the cat-squid in the face, and damn did it feel great.

“You punched the doorman.”

“He was being uncooperative. I only knocked him out.”

“You punched an _innocent civilian_ in the _face._ Do you have no morals?”

“I gave up morals a long time ago.” Hanbin adjusts his gloves before dramatically sweeping his arms towards the garishly large entrance. “After you, _companion._ ”

Donghyuk pinches the skin between his eyes, but Hanbin can tell that Donghyuk is enjoying this, too. Kids on Terrans these days are raised too stiff.

“If you and this J person don’t fall in love and have a million kids,” says Donghyuk, “I’m going to quit my job and sue His Highness for abusive indiscretion.”

“You better split the money, then.”

They make quick, stealthy work past the lobby and into the Hall of Vaults with just a few minor setbacks, which include, but are not limited to, Hanbin roundhouse-kicking a guard a little too aggressively and breaking the eyescan with a throwing star. Luckily, Donghyuk is smart enough to operate the hoverplate with a lighter hand.

“One of the Fourbidden Scrolls was rumored to have illegally leaked into the black market,” he explains as they fly past thousands of safes, “and recent reports say it was anonymously purchased and stored somewhere in here for pick-up.”

“Given what we know about J’s tastes, I’m sure it’s that.”

“And given _your_ tastes, I’m not surprised by your enthusiastic conclusions.” Donghyuk expertly dodges his partner’s swinging fists. “Someone’s extra violent today!”

When they arrive, the vault is open and the sound of another hoverplate is very faint but noticeable in the distance. The question of whether to chase J down is already forming in Donghyuk’s mouth, but Hanbin motions the question into silence. There’s no way they could catch up at this rate.

Elegant work as always, the vault room appears immaculate except for the absent encasement of reinforced glass at the leftmost pedestal. As Hanbin opens the door further, more light spills into the room to expose two distinctive sets of footprints at the entrance, one smaller than the other, though the patterns are frustratingly nondescript.

“So he has a partner,” says Donghyuk. “I always thought people of his work were loners.”

Hanbin’s lips twitch. “Not always.”

Chest puffed, Hanbin strides into the vault with the aplomb of someone too proud to accept being stood up before a date. Donghyuk stifles a laugh. At this point, he doesn’t even mention the possibility of alarm-triggered lasers.

Unsurprisingly, the same square, black paper with endearing laser-writing is there, sitting on the pedestal where the priceless scroll is now not.

Hanbin plucks the paper from where it sits and silently tucks it into his coat pocket.

“Hey,” Donghyuk gulps, suddenly rethinking things, “so on the subject of alarm-triggered lasers—”

Turns out the detective was wrong about the alarm, but very right about the lasers.

 

 

 

  

_Greetings again, lovely Terrans,_

_You sure are a stubborn people, aren’t you? I’ve heard of admirers and stalkers, but you guys are impressive. Although it’s more worrying than flattering, honestly. Try to not get arrested in my place, okay? Fairness is a virtue I’ve always believed in. Fairness in games, on the other hand, is a completely different story._

_Love,  
J_

_P.S. To the handsome one with a great punch, isn’t the weather on Moonbank amazing? I feel twelve shades warmer everywhere._

The eye and heart are still there, as anticipated. A stupid smile appears little by little on Hanbin’s face, as if it’s relearning the fact that that’s what a face can do.

“Gross.”

“Shut up.”

 

 

 

_“No_ you _shut up!”_ A voice akin to bells jokingly yells at a Hanbin one deca-orbit younger than he is now. The body attached to the voice floats above the ground, toes barely brushing the lush grass underneath. Jingling laughter resounds in the air.

 _“Using your wings isn’t fair,”_ Hanbin argues from the tree he’s de-climbing, but he knows his frown isn’t convincing.

Jinhwan, an older space fae boy from the Fae province of Jeju, gives Hanbin a predictable answer. _“Life isn't fair, you know,”_ he says while twirling the goblet he retrieved from the goal sphere. _“We’ve gotta play to our individual advantages to sway customers.”_

 _“I don’t want to sway customers,”_ Hanbin grumbles when he reaches the bottom. _“I want to do my job and do it well. I’ll stick to being boring.”_

 _“Are you serious?”_ Jinhwan sounds so genuinely astonished that Hanbin reddens in embarrassment. _“You have incredible field charisma, levels of accuracy and creativity the gods would envy, and more looks than a merperson could dream of!”_ He flutters back down in front of Hanbin, eyes glittering like the constellations. _“You’re the most interesting person I know.”_

_“You’re just telling me I’m weird.”_

_“In this space and age, weird is the best thing you can be. Being those carbon copies the smaller ent planets produce is so boring. All their faces and techniques are too similar.”_

_“If it ain’t broke—”_

_“It’s not the techniques that are broken. It’s the system.”_

Hanbin wrinkles his brows together. _“You make it sound like it can be fixed. Which it can’t be. Certainly not by us, if that’s what you’re trying to suggest.”_

 _“Aw, don’t be a Negative Nami.”_ Jinhwan bumps shoulders with him, chuckling. _“Anything is possible these days. With all its problems, life’s moved forward really well.”_

In the corner of his eye, Hanbin sees Jinhwan’s wings tuck back into place like they were never there in a way that makes Jinhwan look like another Terran, but terribly extraterrestrial in aura and beauty. If he didn’t know Jinhwan was physically there, Hanbin would’ve thought he was hallucinating.

They both pause to stare at the impressive height of the training building in front of them, as dark and glossy as an oil spill. The body souvenirs from that morning’s spar pulse beneath the treecloth of Hanbin’s last shirt from home, and his feet feel heavier than lead. He misses his mother and sister.

 _“I don’t know how you can say all that while we’re suffering like this,”_ Hanbin finally says. _“Every day is a new nightmare, another second place. These people are impossible to please. The industry is always changing. I don’t see what’s so great about life.”_

 _“Life is tough, but it is enduring,”_ Jinhwan probably quotes from somewhere. _“My people know that better than anyone. But if our long-ass history books have taught me anything, it’s this: memories that make the past worth the pain don’t change, even if the people do.”_

When Hanbin turns to look at Jinhwan, for the first time, Hanbin notices the faerie glimmers in Jinhwan’s skin. They reflect the light the way a moving ocean does.

_“Good or bad, the memories make us who we are,” Jinhwan says, “and I’d never want to change who I am.”_

_“…you sound like one of those dumb radio dramas,”_ Hanbin says quietly, expression bright and in awe.

 

 

 

 

FR: KING.JW@TERRA_m.m89221  
TO: HanB@SP_d.b150915

Based on what we’ve dug up, J’s current activity involves stealing what’s already been publicly acknowledged as already stolen or illegally retrieved. But that’s not enough to convince officials to wipe Hot Topic from their radar. Stealing is stealing, and we can’t logically understand his dispatch patterns.

 

FR: HanB@SP_d.b091515  
TO:  KING.JW@TERRA_m.m89221

That’s because the smartest detective in Terraland isn’t in Terraland right now. With a few more detours, Donghyuk should have the location of our next stop figured out, which can help with home base’s predictions. Thank you for sending the bingo book profiles, by the way.

 

FR: KING.JW@TERRA_m.m89221  
TO: HanB@SP_d.b150915

Anything for you, loverboy. Hope you figure out who J is. [kissy face] [qeuecumber_color=flesh]

 

FR: HanB@SP_d.b091515  
TO:  KING.JW@TERRA_m.m89221

Screw you. I swear to god, you and Donghyuk are collaborating behind my back. Congrats, you’ve brainwashed a great kid into being a pathological liar.

 

FR: KING.JW@TERRA_m.m89221  
TO: HanB@SP_d.b150915

Nah, the only liar here has always been you to yourself. You’ve always been as easy to read as a dog-lizard when you get excited, heaven forbid! [shocked face] [skull] [rolling eyes face]

 

FR: HanB@SP_d.b091515  
TO:  KING.JW@TERRA_m.m89221

You’re the worst. Chanwoo is a better man than you. I hope he accidentally launches a javelin into your chest during the Showtime Festival.

 

FR: KING.JW@TERRA_m.m89221  
TO: HanB@SP_d.b150915

You mistyped “You’re the best” rather horrendously. Now close your comp and have fun – and that’s a direct order, you idiot.

 

 

 

 

Contrary to popular Terraland belief, third time is not the charm. In fact, there’s nothing remotely charming about going to the grimy planet of Gamog to visit Jonglio, one of the most popular clubs galaxy-wide for its collections of both beautiful women and _very_ strong booze.

This time, Donghyuk opts to stay in the ship and monitor from afar on the insistence of his sudden and crippling claustrophobia. From the front deck, he easily infiltrates the club’s lax computer system as Hanbin straps on his tools and dark-colored, symbol-etched weapons.

“I get the idea of partying to death,” Donghyuk says, a bit paler than usual, “but a name that translates to ‘death’ doesn’t exactly sound like a good idea.”

Before Hanbin puts on a full-face mask to hide the oxygen respirator on his mouth, he says with ease, “That’s because you still have a life worth living.”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

Hanbin shrugs. “That’s not for you to judge. Moving out now.”

Hanbin swiftly crosses the distance between the gloomy thicket surrounding the parked ship and the coliseum of a club. It’s jacketed by waves of transforming neon lights and glittering orbs projecting scantily-clad performers into the night sky. Even from a sizable distance away, Hanbin can feel the throb of sound waves ebbing off the source.

With the same proficiency and deathly silence, he climbs up the labyrinth of escape ladders and enters the establishment. The music is near deafening, and the smell of drugs, alcohol, and sex thick like incense.

Donghyuk’s instructions are hard to hear through an out-of-date earpiece when every sense is being bombarded with stimuli, but Hanbin manages to wade through the dense, undulating sea of space creatures towards some curtains hidden in shadows, untouched by the party lights. That is, until he’s stopped by a sinful set of hips.

“Dance with me,” Hanbin hears unusually audibly against the torrential noise pollution.

The speaker, dressed in a loose but conservative wrap, is about a head shorter than Hanbin is with a body as lithe as satin. What is likely a beautiful face is hidden by a glistening veil, above which sensual eyes surrounded by thick, luscious paint coax Hanbin into an intimate dance. At each of their sides is a different club-goer pushing against Hanbin, but not with the pinpoint attention of the one in front of him.

“Keep going!” ushers Donghyuk through the background noise. “The cameras aren’t giving me a clear read of– hey! Are you listening—”

“You look warm in that getup,” says the stranger, voice as silken as their veil despite the noticeably intentional alteration.

Hanbin, through the haze and intoxicating feel of a body against his, grabs the hands he realizes are migrating from his hips to his mask, and forces the hands behind the dancer’s back. Even with the veil, Hanbin can _feel_ the person’s smirk, snaking through Hanbin’s veins and tickling his damp skin. He swallows.

“Think with your head,” Donghyuk’s voice is muddled by static and booming bass, “and not with your dick! Fight it!”

The dancer unabashedly presses closer. Hanbin dazedly fathoms the fact that the stranger is male, or at least has certain male parts.

“Aggressive. I like it,” Veil Face says. “Are you new around these parts? You seem a little lost.”

“You’re losing it, you idiot!”

Hanbin shrugs, unable to speak. He doesn’t know whether it’s because doing so might reveal his identity or if he’s worried his voice might crack. He prays to every god that the heady heat at his thigh is not what he thinks it is.

“Also the strong and silent type,” the stranger continues, sounding disappointed. “I was hoping for strong and loud, but I can settle for one out of two. Unless you are the loud type? I’d be delighted to figure you out.”

Hanbin tightens his grip on the person’s wrists. Even with the respirator, he is starving for fresh, cold air.

“Someone’s getting ahead of himself.” A glittering eyebrow raises in mirth. “Or am I more correct to guess that you’re behind?”

“Kim Han _bin_ you better get a fucking _move_ on or I’m leaving and taking your ship with me!”

“What do you want from me?” Hanbin hazards, hoping that his voice and its slight tremble are at least somewhat unrecognizable in the background noise. He pushes against the stranger, moving them both towards the curtains he nearly lost sight of. “Are you J?”

“Would being this J person change your intentions?”

When they reach the edge of the gyrating crowd, Hanbin’s mind has thankfully cleared enough to answer. He releases Veil Face’s wrists even though he is sure the guy is capable of breaking the hold himself.

“My ‘intentions’ have always been reserved for one, and only one.”

“That doesn’t exactly answer the question,” the stranger says. Even outside of the flashing lights and moving bodies, and even in modest clothes and simple decorations, he still looks majestic simply in the way he stands as if life is his mistress. “But I can respect your words. You’re a decent dancer, I must say.”

“As are you.”

“And you have beautiful eyes.”

“How do—”

“But you need to go and do your thing. It’s alright, I know your kind.”

Before Hanbin can ask for clarification, Donghyuk is screaming in his ear with surprisingly colorful strings of threats, most of which are worryingly plausible knowing Donghyuk. So Hanbin disappears behind the curtain before the stranger melts into the crowd, at least that’s what Hanbin assumes he does. But he has little time to linger his thoughts on Veil Face by the time Donghyuk has guided him to J’s targeted victim, Jonglio’s owner.

Whom Hanbin finds in some office, dressed in a pressed suit and bleeding to death on the floor. There are two deep holes the size of a laser pen’s tip in the forehead and heart.

“Is he dead?”

Hanbin turns around and sees a female of sorts, whose age Hanbin can’t immediately guess, peaking from behind the desk. The female’s skin is as white as pure moonbeams, but mottled with clusters of bruising and bite marks. He realizes she is wearing nothing from the waist down, and the sickliest taste Hanbin can imagine gathers in his mouth.

In the corner of his eye, Hanbin sees a blacked-out window with two holes, small and circular, edges blackened from laser heat. The club’s distinct smell gushes into the room like dam breaches.

With a final glance at the bloody body, Hanbin nods. “It’s unsafe to show yourself to strangers, you know.”

“The one outside said the one in the mask will be safe to speak with. Is that assumption incorrect?”

Hanbin decides not to answer with words, unsure of how to answer the question at all. Instead, he removes his cloak and wraps it around her. She gazes at him, curious, with a beauty so timeliness in her vague age that it makes the depth of the situation even more uncomfortable.

“Where are you from?” he asks as he buttons the front opening.

“I can’t remember where I was born, but I remember being a graduate.”

Hanbin tenses as he nears the bottom of the cloak. The sad reality of most graduates involves falling into crippling debt and undertaking professions laughably unbefitting their training. Hanbin is lucky. Some, like this one, are completely reconditioned out of their initial training and into another.

“What do you do here?”

“Clean. Perform if I’m lucky.”

“Are you compensated?”

“I am satisfied.”

Hanbin decides it’s best to stop talking, stop fumbling with the last button, and close the damn cloak so he can get out of this place.

“The one before you asked me to give you this message,” she says, stiffly holding out her arm. In her hand is a familiar-looking note Hanbin is now experiencing mixed feelings about.

“Did he say anything else?”

She shakes his hand in gratitude, but the vacancy in her look says nothing.

“They said that the owner deserved to die.”

“Time to get out of there,” Hanbin hears Donghyuk say loud and clear.

 

 

 

 

_My lovely Terran,_

_I admit, I was a little selfish today, perhaps in more ways than is acceptable. The “bounty hunter” half of my job description is more difficult to uphold than the other. In some ways, the death of Jonglio’s owner cements my place as one. In other ways, the death simply satisfies my selfish sense of justice. I know another’s worth is not for us to decide, but any deities in charge of those decisions are doing pretty a shit job._

_Love,  
_ _J_

“Seems like you had fun out there,” Donghyuk says without derision. “What was the person saying to you anyway? Other than sweet nothings, I suppose.”

Hanbin feels cold without his cloak. It was his favorite.

“He said I had beautiful eyes. It’s been a while since I heard that.”

 

 

  

 

Halfway through a trip to a fast food place sees Hanbin lying on the floor beside the giant monitor at the rear of his ship. The monitor was specially crafted and programmed to make the curved walls mirror the outer space environment, so the shifting blacks, purples, and pinks of space swim across Hanbin’s skin like melting light.

In Hanbin’s hand is a monochrome photo, purposefully grainy for safety rather than from age, of three people: him and Jiwon in their gloriously lanky teenage years, and on their shoulders is someone who could pass for a beautifully young Terran if not for the delicate wings on his back; the coloring of the photo does no justice to the wings’ dazzling rainbow hues. In the photo, they’re all sweaty and gross, caked with dried blood, but they’re also beaming like the biggest, brightest stars in the sky. That day, the three of them finished their final exam, one of the scariest assessments of their lives.

It’s not a time of his life Hanbin likes to discuss often, not even with Jiwon. He was young and confused and desperate, as are most at that age, but hard work didn’t translate ignorance into bliss like he expected.

Incoming generations now cycle as quickly and generically as skin cells, with newer and fresher but identical faces appearing nearly every half-orbit. It’s intimidating. It makes Hanbin feel old.

But, in a lifetime defined by change, he recalls something someone told him once: the memories that made the past worth the pain don’t change, even if the people remembering them do. He’s recited those words to himself every morning since he left that life behind.

( _“Wait! Jinan-hyung, those pearls are dangerous!”_

_“Dangerous, shmangerous, we need to get to Alpha-17 now or else we’ll lose our target! I’m too far in this hell hole to go back! Follow me or not, I’m using them!”_

_“No, you can’t– NO!”)_

To this day, he still doesn’t know where the photo came from, but has never questioned its existence either. If he does, maybe it will disappear.

By the time the clock strikes 28:00, Hanbin is already on his feet, heavy and aching for sleep. He absentmindedly ghosts a finger over the winged person’s mischievously grinning face, a menagerie of images running through his mind like a molten reel.

 

 

 

 

**_“‘…ou love me? Why? I almost killed you!’_ **

**_‘Because you help me feel_ ** **_something in this dirty, dirty world! I’d be miserable without you!’_**

**_‘But…but how can you forgive me for what I did? I can never forgive myself!’_ **

**_‘Good or bad, memories make us who we are. But I’m still here, aren’t I? Besides…’_ **

**…And that concludes the final episode of _StarCrossed!_ Ugh, I died guys. Rod was like _da da da I love you_ and Dod was like _da da da but I almost killed you_ and Rod was like _you’re still cool let’s fuck_ and then they fucked and…”**

 

 

 

 

“Goo Junhoe.”

“What about him?”

“I think he’s J.”

Hanbin looks up from where he’s shining the tops of his boots, whistle under his breath stopped cold. He suppresses the startled look his body instinctively wants to react with, though he can feel his muscles tense.

“Graduated from Yang several orbits ago,” recites Donghyuk, reading from his tablet the information Jiwon sent him. “Supposedly inactive but has been suspiciously off-radar lately. Recorded to have expressed loathing for Jonglio’s late owner, and interest in the Fourbidden Scrolls and recipes from Silverboy, among others. Inside contacts have told me that he never seems to have his ent badge on him. Even one of the boot sizes we measured seems plausible given his physical records.”

Dryness plagues Hanbin’s throat, as does disappointment in his chest. To be frank, he was expecting someone more exciting than Goo Junhoe, someone more playful and impish. Someone who elicits the same response in Hanbin as the messages, which Goo Junhoe does not do.

“How sure are you?” Hanbin asks, tone erring on forlorn.

“The reports of ‘surprising size’ and ‘voice like a singer’ align as well. He’s quite tall.”

“And the voice? I don’t remember that.”

Donghyuk clicks his tablet off with reserved finality. “I do.”

Something in the way he says it implies more than Donghyuk likely intended. There’s a history there, Hanbin can tell, maybe a fallout or some unresolved regrets. Probably both. Hanbin wonders how Donghyuk and Goo Junhoe could possibly know each other.

Eyebrows knit and questions on the tip of his tongue, Hanbin settles on, “When you said ‘among others,’ what do you mean?”

Donghyuk appears visibly relieved at the innocent question, but what he says next is far from relieving. “Yang’s Inner Fire.”

 

 

 

 

Entertainment or “ent” planets, like their surface inhabitants, exist to serve. These planets house Academies (though are considered synonymous in conversation), which are facilities where handpicked beings are fleshed and remade in the image of their new home to appeal to masses and the individuals that secretly hire them.

Yang, out of the Big Three, is arguably the most bearable, but not necessarily the best. It’s humorously considered the dark and brooding middle brother with more secrets than Pandora’s Box; debonair and dangerous, it fashions some of the most surreptitious and ruthless graduates in the galaxy. On the other hand, Lee is classic yet chic and slick, producing the universe’s first legends but also failing to break free from the past. Then there’s Park, which is too gugglebum pop with its colors and simplicity for Hanbin’s tastes, but their consistency and inclusivity is unmatched among the three.

But in the end, no matter what ent planet exists till the death of its sun, the finest youths across every world will always flock to them, having dreamt forever on stars to eventually become stars. In this industry, a life as lavish as the lucky ones always comes with the entrance price of getting fucked in the embrace of those just as desperate for escape.

Hanbin was a graduate of Yang once, and had been proud of that resume bullet point for eons longer than he’d be proud to admit. As a child, he ran away from Terraland with Jiwon to Yang, and at Yang, through the wretchedness, they found a soul-brother in each other. But the unforgettable memories that came with the insignia are as bad as they are good. It has taken Hanbin a long time to digest the things he’d seen. The things he’d done.

Yet he’s never actually seen Yang’s Inner Fire. It’s a thing of legend, what the higher-ups would religiously illustrate as “the heart of the Academy, and the life force of its people.” A vapid tale and nothing else to scare gullible trainees and bleed them out for loyalty.

Jiwon had seen it once as a reward for a record-breaking stint with another named Song Minho.

When Hanbin asked, the only way Jiwon described it was “impossible.”

 

 

  

 

Upon landing, an absurdly handsome male with glittering scales offers to park the ship, something Hanbin rejects but hands the valet a tip anyway. From the valet’s blankly confused look, Hanbin supposes it’s strange for someone of their training to receive payment without having serviced the payer.

The air smells exactly the same as Hanbin remembers it: a combination of purple lily clusters, meteor ash, and faint traces of quintessence smoke. The oil slick buildings and faux flora have changed slightly to emulate the newer era, now curved and limber and devilish like Yang’s current style of woman. Even the street lights decorating the stairs twinkle twice as enticingly as before.

Hanbin vomits immediately from the shock. Just as quickly, Donghyuk’s hand is on his back, comforting, real, and not associated with this god forsaken place.

“Are you sure you still want to do this?” Donghyuk asks, voice untethered to judgment.

It takes a moment for Hanbin to answer. With one last mouthful, he spits the remains in his mouth onto the blistered landing ground, disgustingly satisfied with his work. Gods, he despises this place with a burning fervor, but even hotter is the excitement in his veins and the frenzied need to finally cork this goddamn mission.

He says, “I’m too far in this hell hole to go back.” Donghyuk, despite himself, laughs a little.

After Hanbin straightens himself out, two young girls, whose combined ages would probably make up Jiwon’s age now, greet them with practiced smiles.

“Welcome to Yang,” they quip simultaneously with the same lilt and tone all greeters before them exhibited. “Do you have a reservation?”

The antennae on one of them twitches alight, causing Donghyuk to stiffen more than he already has at the sight of them. Hanbin retains his deadly gaze and holds up his badge, a little warped from bad handling and disuse, but still easily recognizable.

“My partner and I are not here for your services,” says Hanbin, serious. “We would like to go to the Core.”

The girls’ smiles do not falter. They must have been trained very rigorously to be the greeters. Hanbin almost feels sorry for them as he looks back into their plastic eyes, black and wide and empty.

“We offer a wide selection of options this season—”

“The Core, please.”

“You don’t have the authority—”

“We know. But if you don’t let us in, then the whole planet could be in danger.”

The girls glance at each other with impressive concurrency, but Hanbin recalls that they’ve been coded to do that. It’s the kind of circus act customers eat up, worship. He wonders if the girls, like the rest of the trainees in this industry, are still capable of saying or doing anything other than that which has been fed to them.

Luckily, the one with antennae still retains some degree of self. “The Core is temporarily out of commission right now, sir.”

“Why?”

Antennae Girl stays silent, eerily sharp-toothed mouth physically unable to provide an explanation, one that probably involves J – who is Goo Junhoe, apparently – and his partner. But before Hanbin can say anything, Donghyuk has already maneuvered around him and crouched in front of the girls.

“Your brothers and sisters are down there, aren’t they?” he asks, voice kind and regrettably foreign in these parts.

The girls both nod, still simultaneous in their movements.

Donghyuk pulls down the cuff of his shirt to reveal the Yang insignia on his wrist. He motions for Hanbin, shocked and still trying to process this new information about Donghyuk, to do the same, which he does.

“We’re both graduates from here,” Donghyuk continues. “You can trust us.”

This time the other girl, the one without antennae but with now-extending wings, speaks. Hanbin wonders if her wings are angled purposefully or instinctively to protect the other girl.

“That’s what the last two who entered said,” the space faerie counters. “We can’t find staff members anymore because of them.”

Undeterred, Donghyuk carefully takes their hands in his, as if holding the finest of spun starglass, and puts on his most honest, heart-stopping smile. But nothing can take away from his eyes, which have always been his downfall. Even from the distance Hanbin is standing, he can tell that the detective looks like he’s about to burst.

“The pair who entered before us aren’t totally good people,” Donghyuk says. “We’re here to stop them, if you’d let us.”

The girls exchange glances in perfect synchronization, pausing for such a length that, at this point, suggests telepathy. Such a thing would never be possible between different species, but the terrifying precision of it all is one of a million evidences of the brutal training in this place.

“Follow us,” the girls say, then they lead Hanbin and Donghyuk inside the building.

 

 

 

  

The severe absence of activity and surface staff in the place is more haunting than it is reassuring.

They pass by a plethora of glass windows and gilded compartments, each one built to showcase an individual as beautiful as the next. Androgyny is the newest fashion statement this century, so Hanbin can’t identify who is male, female, perhaps both or neither. At some point, he and Donghyuk force their focus solely on the girls leading them, unable to bear the seductive, young gazes bearing down on their shoulders.

Hanbin wants to throw up again. All he can think of is the first time he was designated surface duty. Yang’s Sharpest Shooter Hanbin. CEO’s favorite Hanbin. They called him that as buyers ogled him through the window. He wasn’t the biggest or the most muscular in the Academy, but he was precise, vicious, and cold-hearted when he needed to be. People liked that. It was novel at the time, entertaining, indubitably profitable and grossly consumable.

Jiwon always listened to him behind doors, suffering in the same way as Hanbin did, but at least Jiwon had a personality people _liked._ Hanbin envied him more than anyone else for his ability to get people to love him. It reached a point where he almost tried quintessence to float, for once, on something other than pain; everyone at Yang was doing it.

But someone, with the stubbornness of a bull and face like an angel, pulled him out of it. Hanbin could thank him for every orbit of his life, and it would never be enough.

When they reach the elevator to the Core, he and Donghyuk are both exhausted. Their joints pulse from the restraint and their breaths are more labored.

The girls press their fingers on the down button scanner, and it is in that moment Hanbin realizes that Antennae Girl is no beastie; no, she is a Terran with surgically attached antennae and mechanically filed teeth. Beyond the horror of the aesthetic changes to someone so young, to this once Terraland native, it is the fact that this world has coerced her to willingly go under the knife that sickens him the most.

Soon, Hanbin and Donghyuk’s carriage to the abyss arrives. It’s surprising but pleasantly convenient that the girls know the password to the Core.

“Good luck,” the girls say together, though their timing is ever slightly off. Fear transforms their once-timid faces at their imperfection, which is enough to force Donghyuk into the elevator before the detective cracks.

Neither says a word for several floors, indulging in the bitterness of their situation.

“It’s sad seeing them. Seeing this all,” Donghyuk eventually mumbles, strength retiring from his shoulders and legs as he slides down to the floor of the elevator.

“I’m sorry,” Hanbin offers genuinely. He joins Donghyuk on the floor. “I never knew you were a trainee here.”

Donghyuk shrugs, the most tired Hanbin’s ever seen him. “It’s not my go-to conversation topic.” The exhale he releases is slow and shaky. “They get younger every year.”

Ever since graduation, Hanbin has never cried, but when he sees Donghyuk dabbing his eyes with a handkerchief, he can’t help but tear up too. Darkness is inevitable in their lines of work, he knows, but that doesn’t make them any less overwhelming sometimes.

“It’s a long way down,” says Hanbin, legs crossed and head resting on the glass wall. “I’ll tell my story if you tell me yours.”

For the smallest tick, the grin Donghyuk gives him almost reminds Hanbin of himself when he was younger. When he was more innocent and open.

“Deal.”

 

 

  

 

FR: KING.JW@TERRA_m.m89221  
TO: HanB@SP_d.b150915

No matter who or what you find on Yang, don’t kill them, okay? Not for you, not for me, not for anyone. Especially not for Jinhwan-hyung.

 

  

 

 

Based on J’s theorized propensity for minimalism, Hanbin was entirely prepared to kick some ass the moment the elevator dinged at the Core, but it turns out that their perpetrator is much bolder than usual today.

Limp but still-breathing bodies of guards pepper the floor of the lobby and the single narrow hallway. Cracks trickle across the walls like spider webs from where weighted collisions likely occurred, whether purposeful or misdirected. Each of the guards’ pockets have been meticulously upturned, probably in search for the key to the room holding the Inner Fire.

 _So this is why they needed the Fourbidden Scroll_ , thinks Hanbin. If this is the psyche-messing power granted by one of them, then he doesn’t want to know what having all four looks like.

“Well,” says Donghyuk, dry and curt, “that speeds up the process.”

Hanbin whistles. His eyes are weirdly bright at the sight before him. “Tell me about it.”

“Keep it in your pants, unit. We’ve still gotta follow the breadcrumbs to the witch’s house.”

“Does that make the bodies breadcrumbs? Ew, why you gotta make it so morbid?”

Donghyuk animatedly motions around him. “ _This_ is already morbid! Just get a move on already or they’ll get away again.”

“Don’t worry,” says Hanbin, rolling up his sleeves, “There’s only one exit down here, and we’re in the way.”

Not that you’d expect it to be otherwise, but it’s unpleasant, walking over the bodies like they’re in a disorganized graveyard. The irony is potent in the unconscious staff here, many of whom are probably instructors, versus the young Yang graduates who overcame them using the skills those instructors taught in the first place.

When they reach the end of the winding hallway, stopping at the corner before the entrance to the main room, Hanbin turns around to silently ask Donghyuk what he thinks they should do. But, when he does, all he sees is more wall.

“Goo _Junhoe!”_

With astonishing speed and probably orbits of built-up emotions, Donghyuk lands his fist squarely into Goo Junhoe’s jaw with a sound that would give any doctor nightmares, effectively knocking the young mercenary to the ground before the guy could even register being called. The sheer surprise of the attack sure shocked the hell out of Junhoe because he does nothing as Donghyuk, in a single, scarily practiced movement, traps Junhoe under him. Hanbin isn’t sure if Donghyuk is just ludicrously strong for his delicate looks or if Junhoe simply isn’t resisting, but Hanbin is far from inclined to find out.

“And he calls _me_ stupid,” Hanbin says loudly enough for Donghyuk to hear. “For all your merits as a detective, you’d be a terrible spy.”

“What the fuck, Kim Donghyuk,” Junhoe hisses from the floor. Donghyuk has even twisted the punched side of Junhoe’s face away from the cool marble floor. Brutal.

“What the fuck me? What the fuck _you!_ ” Donghyuk questions angrily. “I thought you were inactive! Why are you going around killing people and stealing shit outside of jobs? Stealing Yang’s Inner Fire? What’s so good about your new life that you had to abandon me in the middle of an asteroid belt?! Also the name you’re using is fucking lame!”

“Language,” deadpans Hanbin. He earns two dirty looks.

Junhoe tries to wrench his arm from under Donghyuk’s hold, but to no avail. It’s weirdly nostalgic, looking at Donghyuk on the brink of putting Junhoe in a choke hold.

Instead of answering Donghyuk, Junhoe stares blankly at Hanbin.

“Who the fuck are you.”

“I’m Hanbin. I’d shake your hand, but you seem preoccupied right now.”

Junhoe’s eyes widen to an unnerving width. “Kim Hanbin,” he breathes. “As in Yang’s Sharpest Shooter, Hanbin? CEO’s Favorite Hanbin? B.I—”

“Stop, you’re making me blush,” Hanbin says tonelessly, face color unchanged. “Where’s your partner, J?”

“What?”

“Your _partner_. Don’t play dumb, you know Language fluently enough. Where is he? He a one-time thing for people like you?”

Hanbin has a hard time deciding whether the red staining Junhoe’s cheeks is amusing or annoying. “No. He isn’t.”

Hanbin decides he would’ve liked Junhoe in another lifetime, so is okay with greatly disliking him in this one.

Junhoe adds, “But that’s his decision to make, not mine.”

“I think you forgot my first question, so I’ll ask again,” Hanbin says, now pointing his gun at Junhoe’s face. “Where is your partner?”

Junhoe's sneer gets his skull pressed closer into the floor. “Where else do you think he is, dumbass? In the main room.”

“I trust that you don’t need a babysitter,” says Donghyuk to Hanbin, unrelenting in his tight grip. “You go ahead.”

“Got it, captain. Good luck sorting out… _that.”_ Hanbin gesticulates exaggeratedly at Junhoe as if the latter is a dead rat, which leads to Junhoe spitting on Hanbin's boot.

The moment Hanbin strides into the main room and disappears from sight, Junhoe asks, “Wait, did he think I was J?”

Donghyuk pauses, digesting the thought. “You’re not J.”

“I’m not.”

“Then,” he looks at the slightly ajar door, suddenly worried, “who is?”

 

 

  

 

Hanbin recalls something his sister told him once. It was about black holes and about how much she didn’t like them for the fact that they’re what a star’s death looks like. “Stars are meant to bring life and light,” she had said, “Not darkness. Not nothingness. That’s not how stars are.”

Unlike Hanbin, whose beliefs were greatly shaped by the Academy, his sister was raised under their relatively conservative mother, so Hanbyul never believed in the existence of manufactured stars. She’s an amusingly firm proponent of natural phenomena and having faith and all that crap, even when stars are constantly being harnessed for energy until they popped. He doesn’t have the courage to bear down on her convictions.

But in some dumb, metaphorical ways, Hanbyul knew her shit. People her age are always like that, whether adults choose to acknowledge it or not.

Stars are beautiful and life-giving and dangerous and shouldn’t leave through such tragic means. But maybe real stars could never belong in a universe as selfish and cruel as this one. At least that’s what Hanbin convinced himself to think.

“I had a dreadful feeling you were J.”

“Oh? What gave it away?”

Jinhwan smiles from where he’s perched on the gigantic plinth of the even more gigantic center column. Some old-looking book is in his hands. He’s a small being, especially so next to the column, and yet his presence is still immense enough to fill the arena-sized room.

Hanbin shrugs, not daring to cross the dark, lush carpet separating them like an infinite chasm. “You’re not as subtle as you think you are. The signature, the notes, the taste for extremely dangerous things. The eyes at the club. And J? _Jay?_ Your stupid field name? You’ve done more impossible things than walk as a dead man. You really think nothing of me if you thought I’d never consider the idea it was you.”

“I think the world of you,” corrects Jinhwan, easy and charming as ever. The space fae blood has kept him looking young. “If it helps, I did try to make it obvious. Seems like your detective isn’t as smart as he lets on.”

“Because you’re supposed to be _dead!”_

Surges of every negative emotion Hanbin has felt since the accident – anger, regret, shame, hurt – courses through every cell in his body. But now he’s old enough now, at least, to practice some degree of self-control.

“What if one of your enemies figured it out and found you?” he asks, voice level.

“But they didn’t. You did.”

“And your lackey outside? He seems quite charmed by you.”

“Junhoe? Picked him up on an errant asteroid. He’s a good kid.”

“You put him in danger because of your selfishness.”

“We signed up for danger the moment we signed the contract.”

Control over his voice is becoming more difficult, each word turning sharper and increasingly aggressive. “This back and forth is useless,” Hanbin spits out. “I’ve always hated that part of you. You never care about your own wellbeing, only about having fun or being the completionist or overcompensating for what you think you don’t have. You only stop caring about yourself when lives are on the line.”

The steely look in Jinwan’s face stays the same. “If we’re suddenly doing honesty hour here, your bluntness and heartlessness in the field aren’t particularly endearing either.”

“We thought you died.” Then Hanbin adds, softer and quiet, “I thought you died.”

Silence passes between them, effecting more respect for the harsh reality of the statement than awkward emptiness. On the contrary, the air is heavy and suffocating with a mixture of emotions, confessions, realizations. The heated redness in Hanbin’s face says he’d rather choke on his words than continue any further.

Jinhwan presses his lips together. Pauses. Then he sets aside the open book on his lap to motion Hanbin over.

Hesitantly, Hanbin obeys. Walking forward, he wills the tears back into his eyes because he isn’t going to fucking cry right now, not when he’s too incensed to feel relieved that Jinhwan – _his_ Jinhwan – is alive and there and real. This must be a mind game. Another torture trick managers would use to make him comply.

When Hanbin stops, Jinhwan, now sitting on the edge of the plinth, opens his legs and pulls Hanbin by the cloth of his trousers to stand between them. Jinhwan gently rocks his knees against and away from Hanbin’s legs, locking him in and out of place. Hanbin feels lightheaded at the familiarity.

Jinhwan looks up at Hanbin, smile soft, eyes dewy and always sparkling. “Turns out stealing the Inner Fire is a lot harder than I expected. The CEO is very thorough.”

Hanbin rolls his eyes, but doesn’t step outside of Jinhwan’s personal space. “You think he’d be dumb enough to train us to the point we could steal it?”

“I’m sure you could. You’re pretty clever.”

“I was expecting more from the Core,” Hanbin says, looking at the thousands of shelves and millions of books inhabiting the room. “Not a library.”

No question, the room is grand in every sense of the word. Its mile-long ceilings and diamond-studded lights are only two of the many displays of opulence practiced on Yang. But Hanbin had always imagined the Core as something darker, secretive, and with more weaponry protecting the planet’s energy source, which, Hanbin realizes, is the glowing column next to Jinhwan.

Rather than stone, the column is frosted glass filled with white light, pulsing faintly like a heartbeat. It’s impossibly large and its place in the center of this planet is against every law of the living Hanbin has learned. But he feels warm, almost at home, staring fixedly at the mesmerizing light. No wonder Jiwon described it the way he did; Hanbin has never felt this way before, so there’s no way the feeling should seem recognizable.

“This place holds all of the Academy’s records,” Jinhwan says, interrupting Hanbin’s thoughts. “Every single student that has entered and exited, their strengths, weaknesses. Training secrets, public and secret missions, customer profiles and contacts. Pictures. Everything is here. Higher-ups from Park and Lee would have a field day in here.”

“Why can’t you steal the Inner Fire?”

Jinhwan tips his head, looking criminally innocent for an actual criminal. “Technically I can. I have a collection module in my jacket. But nick the glass, take a book from this place, or bring photographic technology and the whole planet explodes.” He looks entertained, then melancholy, then wistful in that order. “The kids here don’t deserve that.” 

“Then why are you still here?”

“Do you mean in this room? Or in the realm of the living?”

Hanbin tries to swallow the dryness clogging his throat. “Both, I guess.”

“For the first one, curiosity, mostly.” Jinhwan looks thoughtful, even older in the way he tilts away from the light. He glances at the open book beside him, which Hanbin sees is actually an album of photos. “At first, I wanted to absorb as many secrets about this place as I could, maybe use that information for bigger plans. Time has often escaped me, but when I saw these young faces, then you and Jiwon all thin and scraggly-looking again, everything just came rushing back and I couldn’t continue. Then again, it’s just like me to get stopped by sentimentality, isn’t it?”

Hanbin ignores the jump in his chest, opting to narrow his eyes to lines as sharp as knife edges. “You always gave in to your weaknesses too easily.”

“Don’t glare at me like that, it’s scary,” Jinhwan says, grinning a little wider.

Hanbin finally notices that there are no wings on Jinhwan’s back, but doesn’t ask. Wings tended to be a sensitive topic for space fae. Admittedly, it’s disappointing and a little saddening to see the majesty of what could have been so blatantly gone. But Hanbin can’t help but revel in the notion that Jinhwan looks just like any other Terran now, save for the rainbow glimmers in his skin.

“For the second one,” says Jinhwan with amused temperament, “you know Odyssey pearls only space-jump, right? Less dead, more extended day trip to a very faraway place. Lost a couple wings, but here I am. Wings are _so_ last millennia anyway.”

That’s exactly the kind of shit Jinhwan would say. Fuck, Hanbin vowed to not cry but screw it he’ll cry anyway.

“You’re alive,” he manages, hot tears moving down his face in thick streams. “You’re not dead.”

“No,” Jinhwan says, still smiling like this entire exchange is more of a welcome for Hanbin than for himself, “I’m not dead.”

At that, the rest of Hanbin’s self-control evaporates and he throws himself onto Jinhwan with enough force to push them both over. He feels absurdly young again, crying in Jinhwan’s arms as if tomorrow is the end of the universe. He’s missed this more than he can possibly articulate. The warmth, the smile, the playfulness—

“I love you,” Hanbin says, unabashedly breathing in Jinhwan’s familiar scent. “I never had the chance to properly tell you before.”

Jinhwan chuckles. The reverberations tickle Hanbin’s torso, making him laugh a little too. “I’m glad I existed long enough to hear those words,” says Jinhwan. “You’ve gotten heavy.”

“Oh,” Hanbin quickly scrambles up until he’s above Jinhwan, “I’m sor—”

With hands on both sides of Hanbin’s face, and with about as much grace as one can expect from an infamously sexy thief-slash-bounty hunter, Jinhwan kisses him. Sweet, gentle and everything Hanbin’s ever dreamed of because you fucking bet he’s dreamed of kissing Jinhwan.

“I never had the chance to properly do that before,” says Jinhwan when he pulls away, then kisses Hanbin’s nose just because he can.

Hanbin deflates back onto Jinhwan’s chest, absolutely defeated and goddamn giddy about it. “I’m glad I existed long enough for that to happen,” he says breathlessly. “Also screw you I hated Moonbank.”

He feels rather than sees Jinhwan’s smirk. “I know. Now get off me, you seriously got too big. It’s kind of annoying.”

“What are you going to do now?” asks Hanbin once in sitting position next to Jinhwan. “The distress signal should be coming into effect soon, maybe ten or so ticks.”

“If you’re not going to arrest me,” the eyebrow wiggle is full of wickedness, “then that’s more than enough time to visit memory lane for a bit. Join me?”

Hanbin remembers the photo he always looks at, the one of Jinhwan on his and Jiwon’s shoulders. They’re all terribly young and with starlight still in their eyes.

He always thought it was only natural to lose that light over the years, but Jinhwan has always been one to do things against all odds. As Hanbin looks into Jinhwan’s eyes, he sees the very starlight he fell in love with a long time ago, and he’s washed over with the same paralyzing sentimentality that must have stopped Jinhwan.

Hanbin says, “Anything for you.”

“…you sound like one of those dumb radio dramas,” Jinhwan teases, pulling the album back into his lap.

 

  

 

 

Yang loyals not present on the planet arrived for support only a little earlier than Hanbin’s prediction, but by then he, Jinhwan, Donhyuk and Junhoe had departed for Terraland. It took Hanbin a lot of coaxing to make Donghyuk leave the greeter girls where they are, especially after they hugged him good-bye at the entrance, but Hanbin doesn’t deny wanting to steal them away to Terraland as well. Other than the garden of incapacitated guards at the Core, nothing else was left out of place.

Hanbin finds it disappointing, knowing that he had done nothing to change the situation at Yang when he had the chance, but knowing that he had a chance in the first place is, in itself, promising for the future. 

 

 

 

 

“I miraculously return from the fourth dimension and don’t get a feast from my friend, the king of Terraland? Which, by the way, is still a dumb name. Surely your ancestors were more creative than _Land_ -land.”

“Don’t diss my kingdom after coming back from the dead, you punk.” Jiwon pulls Jinhwan into a tight embrace. He is not at all as emotional as Hanbin had hoped.

“People who never died can’t really come back from the dead,” Jinhwan says, accepting Jiwon’s hug. “Thanks for the nectar, by the way.”

“Of course! Nectar is great this time of millennia—”

By the time Jiwon has vocalized his last word, Hanbin has his hands buried in the collar of Jiwon’s cape, ready to strangle the life out of his king.

“You _knew_. And you didn’t fucking tell me.”

“I didn’t know from the start,” Jiwon tries, sheepish and absolutely aggravating. “I thought it would be more fun if you figured it out on your own!”

Hanbin pushes his fingers harder into Jiwon’s neck. Jiwon makes vague choking sounds. Yunhyeong does absolutely nothing to stop letting “asphyxiated to death” be the reason for the king's passing.

“Don’t worry,” says Jinhwan with timeworn patience and a placating hand on Hanbin’s shoulder, “he had as much of an emotional episode when I visited. You guys have never been the prettiest criers.”

“Question,” interrupts Yunhyeong. “What are we going to do about those two?”

He jabs a thumb at Glum and Glummer, Donghyuk and Junhoe, sitting in the corner of the castle’s main lounge. Both are nursing injuries after a fight that happened the moment Hanbin’s ship landed because Glummer wanted to “even the odds.” They appear completely detested by each other, yet have still decided to sit on opposite sides of the same couch when other seating options are clearly available.

Jiwon swats at Hanbin to let him down. “In general, I won’t convict you or Junhoe,” says Jiwon to Jinhwan, sounding both authoritative and apologetic. “As far as I know, you’re still considered officially ‘departed,’ and Junhoe’s too young for me to comfortably throw him into prison. I don’t know what to do with you, but community work should do the trick for the big dude.”

“I’ve been told he has a good singing voice,” Hanbin says, chin upturned. “The senior home has always needed some spicing up.”

Jinhwan laughs at the lack of graciousness in Hanbin’s suggestion while Jiwon claps once in agreement. He barks orders at Yunhyeong to enact the punishment and add Junhoe to the lineup for the Showtime Festival, with General Chanwoo in charge of reining the latest addition.

Speaking of which, “Are you staying for the festival?” Hanbin asks Jinhwan, hand pulling unconsciously on the excess of Jinhwan’s shirt. It’s not cuffs on a chain, but maybe the action will keep Jinhwan here for a little while longer.

For once, Jinhwan looks like he’s battling multiple decisions instead of being certain over one. “I don’t know. Terraland is a high-profile planet, especially so during the festival, and most still don’t know I’m alive.”

“I understand if you have to leave,” Jiwon says. He sounds weirdly sympathetic for someone so obsessed with his people’s annual celebration. “But, in my opinion, with a little makeup to cover up the glimmers, you’d look Terran enough to blend in.”

Jinhwan bows his head. “I’ll certainly consider it.” Then he turns to Hanbin, curling his forefinger around the one tugged into his shirt. “Show me to my room? I’m exhausted.”

Hanbin smiles, floating on the most wonderful feeling in the galaxy. “Happily.”

“If he doesn’t show you his own room,” says Jiwon, “I will personally castrate him and throw him to the space hounds.”

Regardless if Jiwon humors Hanbin or not, the solid kick Hanbin lands on Jiwon’s stomach feels as good and as ruthless as it sounds.

Jinhwan whistles. “Hot.”

“Gross!” shout Junhoe and Donghyuk.

“Shut up!” shouts back Hanbin, still smiling like the universe is his. And in some ways, it really is.

 

 

  

* * *

 

Epilogue

 

“So what did you need the recipes from Silverboy for?”

“You’re ruining the afterglow.”

“Sorry. The question still stands though.”

Jinhwan lifts his head up from Hanbin’s shoulder to look at him, and Hanbin looks back.

If he thinks Jinhwan is beautiful clothed, he is absolutely divine naked. Coloring rivaling porcelain, toned but not overly muscled, faerie glimmers in every place where there is skin – and especially the heart-shaped mole under his right eye. Jinhwan’s small body is of perfect size against Hanbin’s, and now he understands why tabloids always rave about it.

Jinhwan laughs quietly, the sound like chimes. “It was a test for Junhoe mostly. I’ve always wanted to have a date eating that food, but the threat of extermination isn’t exactly romantic.”

“Then you haven’t found the right date,” says Hanbin. “Sometimes you need threats of extermination to spice things up.”

“Humor. That’s new.”

“There’s a lot of new things about me now.”

“Seems like I’ve got some catching up to do, then.” Jinhwan makes an exaggerated show of checking his nonexistent watch and calculating timeframes in his head. His voice is nonchalant, but his body language tells the opposite. “I have a bit of a tight schedule, but I think I can squeeze you in.”

“You didn’t have much trouble with _that_ earlier.”

“Ooh, sex jokes, too. Call me intrigued.”

“I guess I can teach you a few things.”

“Then quit stalling and  _teach_ ,” says Jinhwan, smile mischievous and young and everything Hanbin misses. Jinhwan wraps his arms around Hanbin’s neck and pulls Hanbin towards him. “That’s a direct order.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hanbin pounces, dizzy with a sudden appreciation for direct orders.

 

**Author's Note:**

> It was originally supposed to be some slapstick retro space adventure, but this happened. Thank you for reading and let me know what you think!  
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> [tumblr](https://aijee.tumblr.com)


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